Sunday, August 06, 2006

In another scene Borat insists on driving to California, instead of flying, “in case the Jews repeat their attack of 9/11”. In another scene, Baron Cohen, who is himself Jewish, is shown spitting out food given to him by the Jewish owners of a bed-and-breakfast because he believes it may be poisoned. He tells Alan Keyes, a black presidential candidate, he has a “chocolate face”.

While Kazakhstan may be the butt of Borat’s jokes, his interviewees often come off even worse, lured into betraying extreme or idiotic views. In one scene Borat is at a rodeo discussing homosexuals with an older man in rancher-style clothes, and says: “They hang ’em in our country.” The man replies: “That’s what we’re trying to do here.”

At another point, Baron Cohen, naked in a hotel room, catches the fat actor playing his producer, also nude, looking at a magazine containing pictures of Anderson. A wrestling contest ensues, with the fat producer sitting on Baron Cohen’s face.

Matt Dentler, producer of the South By South West film festival, who has seen an early version of the film, said: “This naked hairy male chase ends up coming into a giant marketing convention with 200 suited and tied people, screaming ‘call the cops’ and throwing them to the ground.”

While the Borat film was being made, George Matthews Marshall from Natchez, Mississippi, was tricked into holding a dinner party for Borat and a large black prostitute.

Marshall said that, while Borat was fondling the woman, the comedian tried to lure him into making pro-slavery and anti-Jewish comments.